


fist fights and study guides

by vivoroni



Series: Avengers College AU [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2758937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivoroni/pseuds/vivoroni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The title is in the works.)</p><p>Clint Barton makes friends, loses friends, drinks a lot of instant coffee, and tries to survive his sophomore year of college while his suite-mates wage a war with the bigots the floor below.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

One of the first times everyone gets together, besides the introductory floor meeting, is for floor Cards Against Humanity.

“There’s nothing like being as horrible as possible, in front of other people,” Sam tells them. Pepper just says it’s a “good relationship-building activity,” but Clint can’t really tell if she’s being serious or not. He’s not sure if he wants to go at first, at least until Sam reminds him that it’s a good way to tell who to avoid, based on their reactions.

Since they all live in the dorms, there’s no alcohol involved, either. Bucky makes disappointed noises when Sam stresses that point, until Sam tells him that there will be lots of coffee and sweets to make up for it -- what’s a little floor party without people hyped up on caffeine and sugar, after all? It’s legal, and none of them will get in trouble, Pepper adds, with a stern look at Tony. He’s older than everyone, on account of years of traveling, but the allure of alcohol hasn’t rubbed off yet, and everyone knows it. Not that he usually gets raging drunk, no, but Clint’s definitely seen it happen more than once.

It wouldn’t be that concerning if it wasn’t still the first quarter. But it is, so Pepper, at least, is worried. No one else seems to care as much, Clint notices, but then again, Pepper and Tony seem to have some strange sort of relationship. They’re very close, and if not for the way that Pepper seems to really value Tony (what for, Clint can’t say, and no one else can either), it would seem like a friendly teacher-student relationship. Pepper seems to help Tony a lot more than he helps her, especially with his whines and demands for coddling. She rarely gives in to him, of course, but that doesn’t stop him. She’s so often exasperated with him, it doesn’t really seem like their friendship is ideal, or even a good one. But there has to be something that binds them together, Clint tells Nat when she wonders aloud how Tony and Pepper are even friends, because you don’t just become friends with someone who offers you nothing.

It sounds crude, and Clint feels horrible the moment he says it. He doesn’t want Natasha to think that he expects or wants anything from her other than friendship, and he knows that he’s messed up the moment she flinches away from him. And, well, fuck, Clint thinks. Luckily, they’re early for tonight’s activity and no one is in the lounge to notice his misstep.

“I didn’t… Natasha, I don’t mean it like that, I swear!” She won’t look at him still, but he wouldn’t look at himself either if he was her.

“I mean… Friendships work like this. You give someone your time and, and, and… fuck. and your presence, that’s it. And your words and your feelings, and they give you theirs in return. Like, you can’t be friends with someone when they don’t…. when they don’t want to help you, too. Friends have to help each other, and be there for each other. It can’t be one friend always being there for the other, y’know? It’s a two-way street.”

He hopes that his little speech makes sense, and he opens his eyes to find her back ramrod-straight while she looks at him strangely. She’s silent for a bit longer, and he can hear his heart pounding wildly -- he just wants to know that things are going to stay okay for them -- and then she swallows loudly.

“I don’t know. But thank you for explaining.” And it’s unbelievably cliche but Clint swears that his heart breaks. They’re not the best of friends because it’s hard to make nice with strangers you’ve only see in passing for two weeks, but Clint knows that he wants her to be his. Friend, that is.The way that Phil is probably his friend now, especially after they bonded over watching crappy kids cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon (although Phil will never admit it, since it’ll ruin his image of a serious student), and the way Tony and Rhodey are friends. The way Steve and Bucky will go to the end of the line for each other, Clint wants a friendship like that. Even now, just a weeks in, he’s pretty sure that Natasha is one of his closest friends. They see each other often, they hang out both in and out of class, and even though they don’t really know that much about each other (it’s only been two weeks, after all), Clint wants to be really good friends with her.

It’s a bit too early to be thinking about friends like that, but Clint hadn’t made many friends his freshman year. He had been too aloof, too afraid to have people hurt him again, and just too uncomfortable with school to put any effort into friendships. This year, things will be different.

At least, he’d like for things to be different. In reality, though, there’s a shitton of work to be done before he can really say he likes anyone on this floor, other than Nat and Phil. Steve’s a good guy, sure, and he respects Bucky too, but there’s… it’s just tense. Everyone’s personalities are clashing as they try to catch up with the quarter system and mesh with their roommates and floormates.

And then there’s those guys from the other floor, who they’re supposed to make nice with. Sam and Pepper had made this activity night open to everyone, posting it in the building’s facebook group and plastering flyers on everyone’s floor. So of course, who else would show up but the douchebags from the floor below.

As the room begins to fill with more and more people, it’s clear that just about no one gets along. Tony and Steve sort of glare at each other, or at least avoid each other’s eyes, while Maria zeros in on a kid from the other floor, Brock Rumlow, whose shirt has some kind of pro-life saying on it.She looks pissed, and she’s not the only one angry. Another guy from the other floor -- and it’s kind of weird, that they’re all white guys -- alternates between eyeing Sam distastefully and glaring at Bucky’s rainbow colored t-shirt.

When there’s about 15 people in the room from each floor, Pepper starts discussing the rules, and how they’re going to break it down. There’ll be five groups, she says, of six people each. In order to let people to make new friends and get out of their comfort zones, they’ll decide groups by counting off from one to six, and then finding the people with the same numbers. Clint, a 5, ends up with Sam, Loki, and Sharon from his floor, and then some guys from the other floor who don’t even offer their names.

So of course, the game doesn’t get off to the best start. First, Sam, as Card Czar, chooses “The Violation of Our Basic Human Rights” as the best answer for “War! What is it Good For?” The other-floor strangers are not impressed, or amused. Instead, they give him a huge stink face, and one of them even mumbles something about Sam having “no understanding of humans and international politics.” As much as Sam and Sharon try to foster a conversation, since Clint and especially Loki don’t seem that good at keeping up small talk, the other two don’t really seem to care for making new friends. Mostly, they whisper with each other, moving their lips too quickly for Clint to lip-read. But with the way one of them keeps glancing with obvious disdain at his hearing aids, Clint’s pretty sure he doesn’t really need to know. After all, if they’re that douchey then it’s not worth the effort.

The tension just gets worse and worse, as the other-floor people keep getting upset basically every time societal conventions get challenged. They use their cards to make racist or sexist jokes, which Clint can tell makes Sam and Sharon uneasy. Of course, this makes them enjoy it even more.

During one of his turns as Card Czar, Clint looks around the room to see how the other games are going. Tony and Natasha are grouped with three guys from the other floor, and both of them look almost comically pissed off. Thor, Steve, and Pepper are all carefully losing their poker faces as the guys they’re playing with laugh their asses off.  Honestly, it doesn’t look like anyone’s having any fun. And it’s only about 20 minutes into the activity.

Admittedly, not all of the guys from the other floor look that happy. Rumlow looks like he’s getting a solid talking-to from Maria and…. Loki? Huh, that doesn’t seem like Loki. Admittedly, Clint doesn’t really know Loki all that well, but he hasn’t even tried to be very friendly so much as he’s snarked everyone he’s come across. And not even in a friendly, funny way, but more a jerkface way. Actually, Clint would have figured he would get along pretty well with these guys, knowing what he does now of how much everyone seems to hate them.

But you can’t be right all the time, he guesses. He turns back to his game, determined to make sure that none of the bigots will win.

Eventually Sam wins, making all the HYDRA guys (which is not even a shitty name Clint gives them, but something they sort of mumble about, and Clint wouldn’t know this if not for Sam carefully mouthing it over to him) really annoyed. Or angry, maybe even a mix of the two.

The next game is better, in Clint’s opinion, since he gets to play with Tony Stark (who, even though it’s early in the quarter, has a notoriously dirty sense of humor that makes this game fun) and Peter Quill, a cheerful student from the eighth floor with what Cint thinks is possibly the silliest sense of humor in the building. Combined, they have the most sexual and nonsensical responses you can possibly get, and even one of the HYDRA guys seems to think it’s funny, although the other one -- Clint can’t remember his name, but it’s definitely something foreign, if his accent is anything to go by -- doesn’t look amused. Maybe, Clint will tell Phil later, none of these guys have a sense of humor.

In the game closest to him, Natasha is sitting with Bucky and Pepper, all of them with strange facial expressions. Brock Rumlow, he thinks it is, keeps gesturing to Bucky’s prosthetic arm and contorting his face, which his friend seems to think is hilarious. Nat, Bucky, and Pepper, not so much. To be honest, they look like they either want to run away, or jump him.

Actually, the more Clint looks around, the more he notices how angry his floormates look. Even Jane Foster, a contender for “nicest person ever,” looks super grossed out. A number of them have disappeared, too, ostensibly for the bathroom, but Clint suspects they’ve run off to hide in their rooms. Sam and Pepper, unfortunately, have to stay, as the resident RAs and the coordinators of the event.

Bucky catches his eye and keeps looking toward the door, indicating that they should book it. Clint, for his part, makes a guilty face as he stares at Sam, hoping that Bucky will get the message. It’ll look badly on their RAs if everyone just decides to jump ship. But Bucky, evidently, doesn’t give any fucks about it. He smoothly excuses himself from his game with a loud yawn and almost shouts about how he has a calc test in the morning, and then leaves to go “study before bedtime.”

Steve glares at him, instantly seeing through his lie. Bucky isn’t phased on bit, which Clint admires. (When Steve had glared at Phil in the morning, mostly because Phil had beat him to some dining hall coffee, Phil had looked more cowed that ever. That is to say, he look marginally ashamed and kind of flustered.)

Bucky, on the other hand, sort of rolls his eyes, and then speaks in an even louder voice. “Steve, Clint, do you think you could help me out? I’m having some trouble visualizing how to do washer method.”

Steve, who’s an art and political science double major, if Clint remembers correctly, looks a bit confused. But Clint knows exactly what he’s talking about. He nods, and gets up with a pseudo-apologetic face towards the other players. Tony frowns the shit out of him (he looks pretty upset about getting abandoned, but so would Clint if he was in his shoes), but he really can’t be bothered to care. Steve catches on a second later, and gets up, too. Together, the three of them head down the hallway and escape into their rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the most linear fic ever, in that I don't think the timeline is super clear 100% of the time. But this is still early on in the quarter. :)

Somehow, Clint gets roped into archery club. Well, not so much “roped into” as it is, convincing from Phil and Natasha. Natasha, for all her quiet seriousness and independence, is fiercely assertive when it comes to her friends’ wellbeing. At least, that’s what Maria tells him when they talking while going down the stairs (waiting for the elevator, Clint’s realized, takes way too long, and he likes the exercise anyways). But before the activities’ fair she’d almost quizzed him on all his interests, before telling him, “Unfortunately, there isn’t a dog lovers’ club for you. But I think there’s something that’ll fit.”

She’s right, of course. She leads him straight to the archery club booth, where he signs up and chats with the guys running it whose names he doesn’t catch, but they seem really cool. It seems pretty fun and laid-back, like they just set up in the gym’s archery range (what kind of school has a fucking archery range, Clint thinks, but he accepts it) every week or every other week, whichever one works out better, and shoot. Fun, plain and simple. It sounds like good stress relief, and he means it.

After that, Natasha leads him out of the activities fair right away, and they hang out in semi-silence as he recovers from the huge masses of people that crowded around the quad. He notices that she doesn’t have any fliers, though, like she hasn’t looked at any clubs. And come to think of it, she probably hasn’t -- she’s been with him the whole time, so it’s kind of weird. She’s not looking at him, though, so he isn’t sure if she wants to talk about it. He takes the super subtle route of staring at her, instead.

Eventually, she glances at him and quirks an eyebrow, like she’s asking him, “What do you want?”

He shrugs. Now or never. “Did you want to join any clubs? You didn’t stop at any of the booths.”

“I stopped at the archery booth.”

He shakes his head, because that doesn’t count. “You didn’t take a flier, or put down your e-mail.”

She looks him in the eye then, very seriously. Sort of like she’s trying to figure out if she can trust him or not. She looks away after maybe a long thirty seconds, and finally says, “I don’t think I’m ready to be around that many new people, right now.”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he gently bumps her shoulder with his sympathetically. Or, he hopes it comes off as sympathetic. From the way she smiles back at him, it seems like it does. And they sit in silence. And sit in silence. And sit in silence.

But it’s comfortable. Comforting. And friendly.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Clint meets Nick Fury, one of the student directors of resident life in the SHIELD Tower dorms, he’s a little terrified. It’s not his fault.

Phil is the one who introduces him, roping him into a “Meet and Greet” event during the first week. It’s a way to, well, meet the university faculty who live in the building (why anyone would want to live at school forever, Clint doesn’t know) and the students who work for the dorms. Phil gets Clint to come by telling him he doesn’t want to go alone, and Clint is absolutely sure that he’s lying, except he feels like a dick being distrustful, so he goes, and he mingles. Sort of.

Mostly, he stands off to the side of the room and watches people. Introductions aren’t his strong suit, not really -- people speaking too quietly and too quickly for him to pick up on it sometimes, and it’s impolite to ask them to repeat their names. Really, it isn’t his favorite place to be, but he’s there for moral support. At the very least, Phil will know that he isn’t the most embarrassing person at the event.

Phil’s not the most talkative or bouncy of people, but he’s moving around between all the different people rather comfortably. Not that he doesn’t notice what Clint’s been doing, he knows exactly where he is, but he knows better than to force Clint too much out of his comfort zone. At the very least, though, Phil decides that Clint should meet at least one person. So he picks the scariest person in the room, of course.

Nick Fury is tall, he has an imposing eye-patch, and he’s a military veteran who’s finishing up his last year as a political science and history double major. He also wears a giant black trench coat all the time that fucking billows behind him when he walks, and he can probably break Clint in half, so yeah, he’s scary. It takes him a while to warm up to him, and then they get along. It’s not very easy, and it’s tense at times (Clint’s tendency of flicking paper balls at people has annoyed some of his floormates, the ones who end up as collateral damage when his friends duck out of the way, who of course complain to Fury), especially when Clint refuses to obey rules. But overall, it’s not as bad as it could be.

Clint’s not 100% sure, but he kind of knows that Fury puts on a really strict front. Part of the reason why Fury is so scary, besides being so tall and eye-patched, is how he handles dorm rules violations. He pulls himself up to his full height and glares the fuck out of you, and you can just tell where all the expletives are supposed to be when he’s yelling at you. Not that it happened to him personally, Clint tells Phil, but he watched Fury tear Tony a new one for building some physics thing in his room and blasting AC/DC at 3 in the morning on a weekday, when Quiet Hours start at 10PM.  

Phil, being Phil, doesn’t change his facial expression at all, except for a tiny crack of a smile. Clint swears that he probably would have rolled his eyes, though, or maybe smirked if he wanted to. Instead, he gets a “Fury’s perfectly within his rights to document Tony for violating the rules.”

But then again, Phil and Fury get along almost ridiculously well. Phil, Clint has learned, likes to at least appear simple and bland, and he’s nothing if not professional. That isn’t to say that he’s conservative or inflexible, far from it. Phil can be super innovative, he probably is all the time, but he prefers for people to underestimate him. Fury, Clint would guess, understands that, but in a different way. Phil pushes people’s buttons by being so to-the-line, he can get a good measure of what they like, and once he knows what he needs he starts improvising. Fury does the same thing (otherwise Tony Stark would have about 50 more disciplinary meetings with the Council, the actual directors of the dorms). Not to mention, they have the same majors, so Phil goes to Fury for advice, although he’s said it’s not a one-way channel. Clint doesn’t know what exactly Phil helps Fury with, but he trusts his word.

Natasha, too, gets along with Fury almost too well. From the moment Clint introduced the two (during a pretty awkward “waiting for the elevator” period), she’s thought that he’s adorable. She spends a lot of time in Fury’s office, chatting with him about the effect of Cold War politics on modern-day policies, and heckling him to work on getting more healthy food options in the cafeteria. Somehow, it works (the salad bar almost doubles in size). She also drags Clint down to the office with her, plopping next to him on Nick’s super comfy couch to do her homework in relative calm and comfort. It’s weird, Clint thinks, especially considering how little Natasha likes being around people. But she seems comfortable with him.

They’re not dating or anything (“yet,” Sam says, as Tony waggles his eyebrows with an exaggeratedly creepy grin) but she seems alright with quick hugs sometimes, if they’re not surprise attack hugs, which they’re not even close enough for. In front of Fury, though, she seems almost like she’s at home. And as the student life director, Nick had to make the “come to my office anytime for anything, I’ll even read your papers for you” speech, and Natasha holds him to it. It helps that Natasha’s such a good writer, so Fury barely even marks her paper. But he doesn’t let her off easy, either. He challenges her ideas, argues with her over sentence length, and Natasha grows more comfortable and confident in her own skin.

Seeing her content makes Clint smile. He remembers meeting her, the impossibly pretty girl with the dangerous aura, like someone who you shouldn’t push too far. She wanted everything to be too perfect, impossibly so, and she’d punished herself for her perceived misgivings. Only a week or two ago, she had been too serious. Not that she was giant goofball now. She definitely doesn’t crack jokes 24/7, or poke fun at everyone around her. No, Clint thinks, her actions, her demeanor aren’t so different from before. But she’s less tense, now, she doesn’t freeze up when people look at her for a just a bit longer than she likes. She takes dance classes again, slowly immersing herself in an old pastime that used to make her happy. The look on her face when she gets back from lessons makes the worry and phone-clutching Clint does worth it. Even as Bucky laughs at him (again, but Bucky always laughs at him over his behaviors concerning Natasha), he wouldn’t change it for the world. Natasha is so much healthier than before, so much more comfortable with people than she used to be.

She hugs her friends, Maria and Pepper and Clint and Steve, even. She’s not physically clingy, she doesn’t crave touch, but she seems to love hugs. Hugs, she tells him, are something she never got while a student at Vaganova, because she never really bonded with any of her peers. But she smiles more readily now, tiny little smirks that Stark says “don’t count” as real smiles. Natasha would deck him for saying that, if it wasn’t for the nervous laughs he gives off whenever he tries to make a joke.

Tony Stark, Clint’s learned, is not as much of a douche as he thought. Sure, he can be thoughtless and selfish, but he’s there for his friends when they need him. If he counts you as a friend, that is, and Tony’s quick to judge and cast off people who he thinks have wronged him. He has this annoying tendency of thinking that everything can be bought with money, but he’s only Tony fucking Stark, after all. Rich as fucking Croesus, so he’s mostly only ever had people cater to his every whim, rather than challenge and teach him about proper behavior.

It’s no wonder that Fury can’t stand him. While Clint often toes the line when it comes to “accidentally” breaking the rules, and outright challenging them, Tony really doesn’t give a fuck. He chafes at the idea of listening to other people, and talks constantly about how he doesn’t really need to go to school. “I’m a genius, remember that,” he’ll tell everyone. It’s fucking annoying, and Clint isn’t sure how Rhodey puts up with him. Loki sort of jokes that Rhodey’s probably his keeper and throws a nasty look at Thor that everyone notices, because Loki doesn’t even try to be subtle. But it’s a lot more than that. There’s no fucking way Rhodey would hang out with Tony if he just babysat him all day. Rhodey’s a good guy, but he’s smart enough to not subject himself to some weird kind of emotionally manipulative relationship. Not to mention those kinds of friendship dynamics, as Bucky so eloquently put it, are “fucked up.”

Clint can’t say he understands them at all, but it’s not even his place. As long as nothing weird is going on -- no fighting, no bruises, no cuts -- platonic or romantic, he really doesn’t give a fuck. But once someone gets hurt, Clint’s not going to just stand by. He’s not going to watch that happen again.

Of course, that’s exactly what gets him into trouble.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless you [EnsignWhispy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EnsignWhispy/pseuds/EnsignWhispy) for helping me with everything.

Sam and Pepper are actually really good at organizing floor events. If you ignore the debacle of Cards Against Humanity with HYDRA, that is, but their movie nights tend to be pretty solid. The next event, which Sam first mentions at a floor meeting, is even better than the last, since it’s only open to the floor. And it doesn’t get resolved in one night, either, because (as Sam announces rather grandly) they’re playing Assassins.

Clint hasn’t played Assassins before, but luckily Sam is quick to explain when a few other people give him confused looks, too.

“Essentially,” Sam says, “everyone has a target. Your goal is to mark your target with a marker on their arm, meaning that you’ve assassinated them. Once you’ve done that, their target becomes your next target, and it goes on until there’s one person left, and everyone else has been ‘assassinated.’ Some places are off-limits, so your rooms, bathrooms, and the elevator. Anywhere else on the floor is fair game.”

Clint, along with a bunch of other people, sign up for it. It seems really interesting, even though Clint isn’t sure he’ll even be able to recognize his target (there are a lot of people on the floor). But as Pepper had said, it’s a good way to get to know the people around you. Probably.

Phil bows out gracefully, saying that he’s always in their room, so it wouldn’t work for his assassin. Clint rolls his eyes at him, but then his attention is directed in a whole ‘nother direction when Loki laughs loudly.

“You’re going to play? You can’t even see,” he sneers at Matt Murdock, a blind political science major who asked Natasha to put his name down. Thor visibly flinches as everyone turns to stare, but Loki doesn’t seem bothered. If anything, he seems to relish the attention.

In response, Matt flips him the bird. 

Loki rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything else. He does, however, sign himself up for Assassins.

Once everyone who wants to play has signed up -- basically everyone except for Phil and Bruce, who explains that he gets really violent when surprised and he doesn’t want to hurt his assassin -- Sam shoos everyone off with the promise of e-mailing everyone their targets, and a reminder to keep a marker with them at all times.

* * *

The next morning, a poster with all the players’ names is posted next to the elevator, at the top of the event board. No one’s name is crossed out, not yet. But by the time Clint comes back from Professor Xavier’s office hours (biology sucks ass, and who the fuck sets office hours at 9AM anyways?), Pepper’s name has been crossed off.

Pepper’s not really unaware of her surroundings or anything, or at least Clint doesn’t get that vibe from her, so he’s a little surprised that she’s the first one off the list. If anything, he would have guessed Tony, whose loudness kind of just makes him an easy target.

As they walk to Erskine Hall for their history lecture with Professor Lehnsherr, Maria tells him what happened. Sort of unsurprisingly, Tony was Pepper’s assassin, and she hadn’t tried to fight him so much as she let him mark her.

Sounds like Pepper, Clint thinks. She doesn’t fight, not physically, and she makes decisions based on how things will affect other people. They continue to make small talk, which Clint can proudly say he does not fuck up this time, until they get to class and absolutely have to be silent.

(Professor Lehnsherr is strict as fuck about everything -- cell phones, talking, food, even laptops. This is definitely Clint’s first class where no electronics are allowed.)

When they get out of class finally (sort of unsurprisingly, Prof. Lehnsherr goes over by at least five minutes every lecture, as if two-hour lectures without a bathroom break still isn’t enough time) and make it back up the hill to the dorms, two more names are crossed off -- Tony and Thor.

Since it’s been half a day, and three people are already out, Clint gets a little paranoid when he’s not in his room, or when he gets off the elevator. He doesn’t know who his assassin is (part of the fun, after all), but he definitely keeps his eye out for his own target, Loki.

Only, Loki is a slippery piece of shit. He rarely leaves his room, slips out to class at weird times, and is generally just hard to get. Clint starts to feel like he should just hang out in the hallway and wait for Loki. And he probably would if he didn’t have his own assassin to worry about. Not to mention, that looks a little bit pathetic, and it’s too early in the year to look a complete loser.

Actually, Matt is the reason he gets Loki. Well, Matt and some girl he’d been talking to as he got off the elevator (Clint finds out way later, her name is Elektra and she’s a political science major). They all finish Wednesdays with the same class (Professor Xavier’s biology lecture), so they walk back together and complain about, well, biology. So while Elektra was leading Matt off the elevator, Loki had been crossing by them to get to the lounge.

Clint, with a quickness that still surprises him, sort of “ninja-ed out of elevator,” as Tony describes it, and marks Loki on the arm. Unsurprisingly, Loki is not amused. He doesn’t go on a tirade, but he does sort of huff angrily and reluctantly cross his name off the poster. He doesn’t lose gracefully, but he doesn’t act like a kindergartener throwing a tantrum, either. It weirds Clint out a lot. Nothing he does seems really genuine, except for all the arguments he gets into -- those seem pretty legit, but only because he seems really relish pissing people off. Clint does his best to avoid talking to him, which both is and isn’t hard. Loki doesn’t seem to care of disabled people, like at all, and acts as if Clint (and Bucky, and Matt) are beneath him. But he also sees them like his own personal jesters or something, and loves to insult the fuck out of them.

Sam and Pepper have been breaking up a lot of fights for the past few weeks, to say the least.

By the beginning of the next week, almost everyone playing Assassins has been killed off. Steve is the next to go, after Tony and Loki, after Sam surprises him in the middle of the afternoon, right when he gets off the elevator. Rhodey and Bucky follow, with Rhodey getting Bucky after a particularly violent looking battle to the death. It would have been a good victory, except for Clint almost literally swooping in and marking the crap out of Rhodey.

Maria is out next, after Matt recruits his roommate Foggy in helping him recognize his target (more like, threatens to throw out all of Foggy’s Cheetos). It works out for Clint, since Maria was supposed to be Clint’s assassin. (That surprises Clint, since they’d hung out pretty often, and she hadn’t tried to mark him. She tells him that he looked a bit too pathetic to mark right off the bat.) Well, sort of. Actually, it just makes the game more difficult, when Foggy doesn’t help Matt escape Natasha.

The last people “alive” are Clint and Natasha. They’ve come to an agreement to not mark each other when they’re walking to Dance History 10 together, but Natasha’s just as slippery as Loki, or maybe more. She doesn’t stay in her room all the time, but she’s ridiculously quick, and she twists into the weirdest positions to get away from his marker. It's kind of terrifying, really.

Getting close enough to her to mark her is a battle in and of itself, actually, because she moves so fast. And because she’s so tiny, she can be pretty hard to pinpoint.

In all honesty, Clint thinks that if all he wanted was to win then he would try to mark her from a distance. Marker arrow, or something ridiculous like that. He’s had enough archery practice that he could probably make it work (not to mention, he’s lived with the consequences of failure and he knows better than to miss).

He mentions it in the vaguest way possible to Phil first, who tells him that’s breaking the rules. Not that breaking the rules is a bad thing, Phil continues, but that’s not the point of the game. Which is true. Instead, Clint just waits. Not in a particularly creepy way, like camping out in front of her room or anything, but he does have Tony text him when Natasha’s in the lounge (because there’s no rule against having other people help you).

It sounds like something that could work, except that Natasha figures it out pretty fast. And by pretty fast, Clint tells Phil, he means inhumanly fast. Like, she is way too smart, and Clint is pretty close to giving up and letting her mark him, except that at this point, they’ve been dancing around each other for like, three days and it’s too much time spent for him to give up.

He gets her when she comes back from dinner. He’s studying in the lounge, waiting for Maria to come study with him before their history midterm -- seriously though, who the fuck gives a midterm during week 3? Professor Erik fucking Lehnsherr, that’s who -- when Natasha comes back from dinner and stops by to say hello.

She’s leaning in the doorway and absentmindedly pushes her sleeves up to her elbows, when Clint remembers that they’re not supposed to be idly chit chatting, so much as he’s supposed to be trying to mark her arm and win. He tries to reach for his marker while still looking subtle and relaxed, but she notices, because of course she would, and she takes off down the hallway.

If Clint expected to corner her in the hallway, he’s wrong. Of course he’s wrong. She reaches the end of the hall and goes down the staircase, instead of just stopping. As fast as she is on her feet, though, Clint’s just as fast, and he’s more used to obstacles than she is (he doesn’t know this about her yet, but her ballet training did not include instructions for moving up and down stairs as fast as possible, so much as moving across a stage quickly). Still, she’s quick enough to get away from him, at least until they read the emergency exit at the end of the staircase; if she continues on, she’ll set off the alarm, so the only real way for her to run is to go through another door and make a mad dash for the elevator.

But it’s too late for her to try. Clint’s caught up with her, in the split second it took for her to consider her options, and she’s basically cornered. He goes to mark her, not quite grabbing her arm to hold her still but sort of lightly grasping it, and she’s immediately on the defensive, kicking back at his knee instinctively and throwing her weight away from him until he lets go of her, which is pretty much immediately.

Her face, when Clint looks down at her, is blank. She looks absent, empty. Maybe removed from herself.

“Nat?” He has to ask, to make sure she’s okay. He doesn’t want to have fucked anything up for her, or accidentally cause her to remember some past trauma. She shakes herself, just a little, and her eyes focus on him.

“Clint.” She tries for a smile, but it only half works. “Hi. Sorry. Are you alright?”

He shrugs noncommittally. His knee hurts from where she kicked it really hard, but it’s not fucked up or anything. Give it a day and it’ll be fine, which he knows from experience. Might need ice, but that’s alright. He’s more concerned about her right now.

“Don’t worry about me. You okay?” He looks at her, trying to see if she’s okay or not. Except, of course, she won’t look at him or answer the question. Actually, she changes the topic entirely.

“Looks like you’ve won.”

That surprises him. “What?”

“You have a marker. I don’t. You win.” She’s doing her best to look nonchalant, and ignore the fact that she had… Clint’s not sure what to call it, a flashback or a panic attack or something.

“Natasha,” he starts, but she gives him a look that says drop it. Instead, she holds out her arm and waves it in front of him.

“Tasha, seriously. Are you alright?” She glares at him a little more angrily, more death glare now, but then Clint blinks for a moment and when he opens his eyes again, she looks normal. Not angry, not scared or blank, but she has a neutral expression on her face, and her body doesn’t scream “leave me alone” anymore.

“I’m fine. Are you going to win, or not?” She shoves her arm in his face again.

He swallows, then nods. He takes her arm in hand, looking at her for panic or some other kind of bad reaction (there’s nothing), and draws a little arrow on her arm. He lets go, then holds out the marker to her before she can move away. “Your turn.”

“What?”

“It’s your turn. Do it.” Her eyes narrow in confusion and… suspicion, Clint thinks, but she doesn’t move. So he starts to talk again. “Come on, Tash. You’ll save yourself from all of Tony’s jokes, and Loki’s snide comments.”

She’s still looking at him weirdly, but she draws a tiny hourglass on the inside of his wrist. He smiles at her, a giant grin and his eyes even crinkle around the edges, and she wants to smile back. Instead, she hands the marker back to him, and then walks back up the stairs to their floor. He follows behind her.

When they make it back to their lounge, Maria is waiting for Clint with a raised eyebrow. She watches as they both cross their names off the poster, handing the marker back and forth between each other, and then Natasha disappears silently down the hallway.

“Did you do something to her?” is the first thing she asks, once Natasha’s gone and the door’s slammed closed behind her.

Clint looks at her. How the hell did she know? Maria reads his face pretty easily, though, because she explains immediately. “I live with her, Barton. I can tell when she’s putting up a front, and you guys were gone for like, ten minutes. That’s more than enough time to kill someone off in Assassins.”

“I kind of grabbed her arm. She didn’t react well.” Maria looks kind of skeptical, like she knows that there’s more too it. But Clint doesn’t feel like it’s his place to tell her anything else. It’s Natasha’s life, and he doesn’t want to make things uncomfortable for her; he tells Maria that, and she just nods.

“Makes sense,” she tells him, but she still sounds doubtful. She seems to brush it off, though, and changes the topic. “Did you still want to study? I picked up an old midterm from the Test Bank, it might help.”

“What? Yeah, sure. Let me get some coffee first.”

Maria rolls her eyes, but she lets it slide.

 


	5. Chapter 5

It starts when Steve and Bucky come back from class late at night maybe two weeks later, while everyone else is sitting in the lounge, half of them studying (well, more like Phil and Natasha), while the others sort of watch a movie silently (it’s a good movie, and none of them are really close enough friends to feel comfortable making commentary). They both look kind of battered, Steve more than Bucky, but they both seem about equally angry. Well, Clint thinks, tilting his head a little, maybe Bucky’s more pissed. Although it might just be that black eye he’s sporting, along with a giant and nasty-looking bruise on his flesh arm. Not to say that Steve isn’t injured -- he’s got a towel pressed to his mouth that looks a more than a little bit red, and he’s using his elbow to cradle the other arm. But that black may makes Bucky look downright dangerous.

Buck’s trying to lecture Steve, or something, but he always looks like that because of how he puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder. Even though Steve’s taller than him, Bucky looks like the older friend. The Mr. Darcy to his Mr. Bingley, except perhaps less early-novel and more later-novel, when he’s less of a douche (Clint, despite all the jokes Tony made about him being raised on shitty circus shows and public television crap like the Teletubbies, has gone to fucking school, where you read shit).

But whatever. Steve and Bucky are kind of angrily talking over one another in hissed whispers, and only a few words tumble out -- it’s hard for Clint to hear when they’re so jumbled together, especially from too people, but he gets a few things out of it. “Regressive bastards” from Steve, who curses like a sailor even though he looks clean as fresh laundry. “Harebrained” from Bucky, which seems a bit old-fashioned but probably makes sense. Steve shoots back with something that sounds like “could have fucked up your arm.” And also “HYDRA,” which makes Clint uneasy.

“HYDRA,” Clint knows now, is the name that another floor uses to talk about themselves. When Sam had told him initially, Clint hadn’t really gotten what he was saying. But once he explained it to him the next day, he thought it was sort of comical. He would have laughed them off the first time he heard about them, except for the fact that they were literal neo-nazis. Like, literal Nazis who want to kill fucking everyone and complain when anyone who isn’t a straight cis white man gets rights. Not only did they basically spend all their fucking time preaching about the wonders of white supremacy (didn’t they have classes to go to, or something?), but they got away with so much bullshit it was ridiculous. And they’d been around for fucking ever, too. Clint’s not sure how they manage it, to have all of them on the same fucking floor every year, but somehow they do it.

Looking around, he notices that everyone else looks concerned or angry, too. He’s not sure if it’s because of the mention of HYDRA, which Tony’s alumni father had apparently told him horror stories about, or because of how fucked up Steve and Bucky look. Everyone’s staring at the floor, shifting their eyes away from Steve and Bucky making their way down the hall, only to look back almost immediately. It’s like a game of hot potato that doesn’t stop until Pepper decides to go for it.

“Steve, Bucky, what happened?” There isn’t any accusation in her voice, no motherly censure or anger. Just concern and curiosity, and Clint can see Steve relax after he tensed when she started talking.

He gestures to his shirt, black with pink, purple, and blue text -- the same colors as the bisexual flag stuck onto the bulletin board that displayed different sexualities and their pride flags. It reads, “I’m not confused, I’m bisexual.”

“HYDRA,” he starts, before shaking his head angrily and just looking pissed off as fuck. But that’s alright, because everyone immediately understands. Fucking HYDRA, who likes to paste signs about how “the gays” or “feminists” or basically everyone are going to be the death of civilization. Of course they would go after Steve, who could almost be their white cis man wet dream if it wasn’t for his sexuality. “They didn’t… they were yelling outside the LGBTQ center. It wasn’t okay.”

There’s an explosion of sound around him, as everyone immediately jumps into action. No one is really close to one another, that’s true, but when they’re united against a common enemy... Pepper and Sam pull out their phones to talk to Nick Fury about disciplinary measures for HYDRA while everyone else starts either plotting against HYDRA (Tony, of course) or going up to Steve and Bucky to check on them.

It sort of surprises Clint to see Natasha give them both tight hugs, only a little bit. Steve, despite all his inherent goodness, is absolutely driven and works so hard, of course he and Natasha would get along. Bucky, on the other hand, has the same intensity and focus that Natasha does, although he’s more lighthearted and science-minded. And she doesn’t stay long, either, just gives them hugs and what looks like a comforting whisper from the way the two seem more at ease, before she slips off into the crowd.

Clint mostly watches from the side, not wanting to interrupt or overload their senses. That’s what he would want, anyways, to be alone and not have people constantly coming up to him, talking to and at him. But he catches Steve’s eye and tries to shoot him a reassuring smile, something that will say “I’m here for you if you need me.” Steve smiles back, although with that towel still pressed against his mouth, it looks rather sinister -- messaged delivered. Natasha backs away from them too, and goes up to Clint, leaning her head against his shoulder for a moment. She, like Tony, will want revenge, he knows. But she knows to wait, to gauge her options before making a move.

Tony, on the other hand, is planning like no tomorrow. He’s not making much sense to Clint, since it’s all engineering jargon, although he can understand when Tony weighs the pros and cons of having his father withdraw Stark Foundation donations to the school. Because while “it would fuck those HYDRA bastards over,” it would also make things worse for the other students. Not to mention, Rhodey reminds him, that HYDRA has connections to the school’s administration and directors, so they wouldn’t be the ones hurt the most. Just the ones who need that money.

Thor tries to find a way, too. In his booming Shakespearian voice he offers to to talk to some people, he doesn’t say who exactly, to figure out what to do. But before he or Tony can get very far in their discussion, Nick Fury sweeps into the lounge, his black trenchcoat flailing dramatically behind him.

Steve and Bucky are seated on one of the couches now, Pepper and Sam still around them, with Jane and Betty, one of Bruce’s classmates, doing their best to inspect their wounds and figure out of they should go to the campus health center. Despite Steve’s insistence of “no doctors,” of course, but he doesn’t seem super set on it; mostly, he seems almost content and comfortable, although he still looks pissed as all hell. His lip has stopped bleeding, Bucky’s eye looks less gross (and it’s not that bad -- Clint knows from experience), and they’re surrounded by friends who want to help them get back at HYDRA.

Except for Fury, it seems like, who just says, “What the fuck happened here?”

Immediately, everyone quiets down. Sam and Pepper look both worried and confident, even though Clint thinks that doesn’t make any sense at all, but that’s just how it looks. Fury fixes his eyes on Steve and Bucky, though, surrounded by everyone else, without even looking at his RAs. But his voice is, at least to Clint, surprisingly gentle. “Did you two want to explain this here, or in my office?”

Steve and Bucky share a moment, a look, and then seem to straighten up in unison.

“Here, sir,” Steve says.

“Cut the bullshit, Rogers,” Fury says, but without an ounce of anger in his voice. “Just explain.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Steve explains to Fury, the same way Clint feels he seems to do everything -- he’s serious, he’s honest, but he’s also self-deprecating. He talks about how “those HYDRA bastards” were painting up the walls of the LGBTQ center with homophobic slurs and yelling insults while he was inside the Queer Resource Library, and when he went outside to confront them, they ganged up on him. Bucky makes a face here, mumbling something but Clint can’t tell what, it isn’t very clear. But Steve gives him a look, and he speaks clearly and loudly, just to annoy Steve, about how Steve is an idiot for thinking he could take on all of those guys by himself.

Their narrative degenerates there, with Steve telling Bucky that he’s not “a scrawny shrimp” anymore and can take care of himself, while Bucky snaps back, “Obviously not, since I had to pull your ass out of there.” There’s a sense of “just like old times” throughout, although Fury isn’t very amused.

One look at his face, and Steve and Bucky go back to recounting the story. While Steve was getting played with by the HYDRA dirtbags, Bucky had been walking back from class when he saw them. With his prosthetic arm and skinny jeans, the HYDRA students thought he was a potential target, at least until they saw the huge-ass muscles on his flesh arm. In his words, not Steve’s or Clint’s.

Steve interjects to mention that HYDRA didn’t really give a fuck how much Bucky works out, they just saw his skinny jeans and thought he was “one of those disgusting queers.” Bucky doesn’t talk over him exactly, but once Steve finishes he picks up where he left off, almost as if Steve hadn’t said anything. He’d gotten into the fight, too, although a bit more cautiously than Steve, and had punched around a few of the guys before they all left, now that the scales were more even.

The whole time, Fury keeps a very plain facial expression -- his eyebrows don’t move, he doesn’t question anything, he keeps his face as neutral as possible. He looks almost angry, although Clint thinks that’s just his natural facial expression. He doesn’t seem to judge or try to guess, he just lets them talk (or rant, mostly). But once they’re done, he has more than a few choice words.

 “I will say that those HYDRA bastards need to be knocked down a peg or two,” he starts, only to get more serious as Steve and Bucky exchange tiny grins, “but what the fuck were you two thinking? Or were you not thinking at all? Do you know who’ll get in trouble if they tell the administration about it? Me. My ass is on the line here, not just yours.”

Clint sees Steve bristle, while Bucky flinches, but next to him Natasha relaxes, even as Fury continues. “You made a stupid ass decision, and I’m not going to be the one cleaning up your messes, especially not this early in the quarter. It’s only been two and a half weeks and you’ve already managed to fuck something up. You’re not little freshmen anymore; you’re all grown-ass adults here, act like it!”

Natasha leans over to bump her shoulder against his, and Clint eases before he even knew he was tense. She knows Fury much better than he does, and her reassurance lets him know that Fury isn’t actually that angry. But he has a role to play and a job to do, as well as a reputation to keep up, even if he hates HYDRA.

“Officially, I can’t get involved in this,” Fury admits. “You know I hate those motherfuckers as much as you do, but as student director I have to be neutral.” On “neutral,” his tone changes to one of distaste, and the look in his eye tells Clint everything he needs to know about what’ll happen next. “But off the record, if you do something, I want you to come to me first, okay? I don’t need you running around fucking shit up for you and me.”

Steve and Bucky look at each other again, and Clint sort of rolls his eyes at how in love they are. He isn’t the only one to notice, either; Tony keeps staring at Bruce as he mouths “they’re in love,” complete with dramatically fluttering eyelashes and his hands clasped in front of his chest. Luckily, Fury doesn’t notice, or at least he doesn’t care to comment. Steve and Bucky don’t say anything about it either, but they’ve finished their silent conversation or whatever it was, and Steve just grins at Fury.

“Understood, sir.”

And Clint just knows that, cliche as it is, his life won’t ever be the same again.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Despite all of Tony’s plotting, Steve doesn’t really talk to anyone about waging this little war on HYDRA. Mostly, he talks to Bucky and some of their high school ROTC friends. It’s a long skype conversation that lasts until the sun comes up. Not that Clint keeps track of Steve, but their rooms are next to each other, after all they do share a bathroom, and the walls are thin. While he takes out his hearing aids at night and he can’t really hear a thing, Phil does not have that problem. The grumbly faces he makes while Clint’s up cramming in biology homework tells Clint everything. As annoyed as Phil is, though, he won’t go over to ask him to be quiet. There’s some kind of hero worship going on with Phil and Steve, and it’s almost adorable and slightly strange, in Clint’s opinion. So Steve continues with his late-night conversations, even though he sleeps through his 8AM “Mass Media and Elections” lecture. Some things, Clint thinks, are more important than academics.

Tony frowns at Steve from across the lounge during floor meetings, from the other side of the table when everyone gets together twice a week for dinner, makes faces at him when they meet in the bathroom. Even though no one else makes their annoyance and disappointment so obvious, it’s pretty clear that they all feel the way. Steve tries to get them to back down, and he’s only marginally successful. They’re not very close, he tells them, even though it feels rude to say so. They don’t know each other very well, so it wouldn’t be fair to involve them in his affairs.

Still, it doesn’t stop the concerned looks they throw at Steve when they see the huge circles under his eyes (the consequences of his nefarious plotting, Tony calls them), it’s super hard to miss.

And then there’s Loki. Clint doesn’t really know much about Loki, except that he’s Thor’s brother and they seem pretty much like polar opposites. Pepper and Sam, even, don’t know much about him, and they’re the friendliest people on the floor. It’s weird as fuck, Clint tells Phil. Phil just sort of shrugs, doesn’t agree or disagree. That’s just the way he is, Clint’s learned. Phil likes to appear neutral, too. It’s part of his bland facade designed to make people underestimate him. Clint, for his part, rolls his eyes and calls him a “typical politician.”

Honestly, though. Loki’s weird. Well, more than weird, a lot of his views seem antiquated. He seems very… Plato-esque, to quote Natasha (who would, of course, be well-versed in classical texts). He gets into political debates with Steve, arguing for what he says is an enlightened monarchy but what Steve calls despotism. Clint’s not stupid, but he’s also not a philosophy or political science major -- he doesn’t know all the fancy terms or anything, but he’s perceptive enough to judge for himself from their arguments which one seems better. Loki talks about subjugating people, about how people are too “dumb” (Clint bristles at this word, and Steve takes offense on his account but Loki just steamrolls past him) to make decisions for themselves and need to be ruled.

To make matters worse, Loki asks Steve, “Isn’t that what your beloved Founding Fathers would have wanted? They didn’t want the people to vote, remember? They hated the masses. That’s the ideals that you said you would protect when you decided to serve.”

Steve flinches, but stops Loki before he can say anything more. “Sure, that’s what they wanted, but they were wrong. Tyranny will never work, just look at history -- people tear down oppressive regimes, and rebuild things better. And yes, I served because I wanted to protect this country and its people. But that’s not the only thing we did over there. What I did, what I was a part of, is hurting other people. Real people, and it needs to stop. It stops when this government starts to listen to its people, good people who don’t want to hurt anyone else. That’s what I’m here for -- what are you doing here, anyways?”

Loki just walks away muttering about how “ridiculous” Steve is, and how “useless” it is for him to argue with such an idiot.  It’s an excuse Clint’s used before, to be sure, like when he talked with Barney about disability rights, but it rubs him the wrong way. When Clint had used it against his brother, it was because his life experiences were being invalidated and Barney didn’t get it; but with Loki, it was something else. A statement of his superiority, or something just as obnoxious and arrogant.

Still, in-between debating Loki about politics, going to the gym with Clint, and arguing with Tony over something-or-other, somehow Steve found time to figure out a plan. It didn’t really involve anyone else, and so of course they didn’t see it come.

Luckily, HYDRA didn’t either. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most sophisticated of ideas, or even the most mature. But it was annoying and practically harmless, and in accordance with Sam’s advice to not make extra work for the janitorial staff (“No TP-ing,” he’d said sternly once Fury had left them alone), it didn’t do that, either.

Instead, he steals their room keys. Which they shouldn’t even be leaving by their doors, Sam says during a floor dinner, so it’s more okay than trashing their lounge. And they do get the first five replacements free, so it’s not like it’ll cost them anything (it’s only the third week, and if someone’s lost 6 room key cards already, they’re a lost cause, Tony adds).

Steve also shoves little envelopes in their mailboxes, each with a card that said, “Congratulations! You’ve Won Racist of the Month!” and had a… cute animal drawing, according to Bucky, in each of their mailboxes.

“Nothing pisses off white men as much as being called racist,” Natasha had told him when an angry HYDRA floor resident had stomped onto the elevator, the card in hand. Maria had added in that guys like those guys couldn’t stand to have their masculinity threatened, either, which was the point of the cute animals. He sure looks pissed off to Clint, that’s for sure. The guy walks up to Steve’s door and pounds on it. Clint watches him from the lounge with his History of Ballet notes spread out on a table, a pile of notecards next to him as he prepares from his midterm. The angle is a bit weird, but if he tilts his chair back just right….. he can see what’s going on. Or at least, what would be going on if Steve wasn’t in class right now (not that Clint is a creep who keeps tabs on his neighbors, but he’d seem Steve waiting for the elevator 20 minutes ago with his backpack on, so yeah). It doesn’t stop the guy, Brock if Clint remembers correctly, from continuously banging on the door.

And then Natasha pats his arm gently, trying to get his attention. She’d been sitting on one of the couches rather than the table, curled up with her Physics 10 textbook, a mug of coffee, and a confused facial expression. But in the 5 seconds or so when he’d been trying to watch whatever drama unfold, she’d apparently moved from the couch to the chair next to him.

“Stop it,” she said sternly. If it was easy to in that chair, she probably would put her hands on her hips, Clint muses as he picks up his notecards again. Auguste Vestris, Carlotta Grisi… He gets through two more names before he looks back at Steve and Bucky’s door. Brock Rumlow is gone, but the paper is crumpled up at Steve’s door. Natasha, on the other hand, moves back to her seat on the couch, pulling her feet up underneath her as she pulls her textbook back into her lap.

Loki snorts at him from across the lounge, seated in a dark corner of the room with the blinds drawn. While Clint’s sitting by the window for more natural light (fall’s approaching, and he’d like to take advantage of the sunlight while he still can), Loki seems to love the darkness. He dresses in just as much black and dark green as he did that first day, and his hair is as greasy as every, but he seems comfortable with it, so Clint just kind of ignores it.

“You can’t help yourself, can you? You’re drawn to conflict,” Loki says. Clint doesn’t know if he’s talking to him, or maybe to himself -- Loki never really volunteers to start conversations, not even with his brother Thor. It’s sort of weird, but Clint’s had a lot of trouble getting used to talking to people, so he lets it slide. He assumes that Loki is just really, really shy. Or he tries to. It’s a nice illusion, at least until Loki opens his mouth once in a blue moon, and says something super fucking pretentious, like “drawn to conflict.” Or when he tries to debate Steve, Clint supposes.

Unfortunately for Loki, his next step is to actually leer at Natasha. Like, that lecherous look that you see shitty movie villains do, that you don’t think people do in real life. He basically stares down her shirt. Natasha notices, her spine stiffening and her eyes narrowing to tiny slits. Loki grins when he notices, and he opens his mouth to say something -- probably something rude and gross. But before he can say anything, Pepper comes through the doorway and calls out to Loki. She just just as upset, and when Loki does (slowly, finally) look up at her, she tells him that he’s in trouble for inappropriate behavior.

Loki protests, of course. He says he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Threatening behavior,” she tells him in a clipped voice. “The way you looked at Natasha gives me reason to believe that you’re threatening her safety. ID, please. Now. Before I have to write you up for refusing to comply.”

Of course, he complies. As much as Loki loves to act like he’s some kind of hotshot lawyer who can talk circles around them (all because he’d taken a logic class, once), he won’t do anything to fuck up his housing. If there’s anything that Clint’s learned about Loki because his overall douchiness, it’s that he hates being home. While Thor’s gone home once already, Loki definitely has not.

The moment Pepper’s gone, Loki whirls on Natasha.

“You little bitch,” he starts, but he doesn’t get far before he notices that Natasha’s disappeared. While Pepper was distracting Loki in his dark, dank, creep corner, Natasha had slipped off, probably into her room, if Clint’s any kind of judge.

Loki loudly and angrily collects his books and laptop, then stomps out of the lounge. That guy needs help, Clint thinks.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Professor Lehnsherr, because of course he’s a huge douche, schedules his office hours at 7AM. On a Monday, of course. This means that Clint has to drag his ass out of bed at 6 to brush his teeth, make coffee, and put his bag together. Fucking papers.

He slips out of his room at 6:30, giving him just enough time for a brisk walk all the way across campus, and 5 minutes to rest up so he doesn’t look all sweaty and gross when he walks into the office. Not that Clint really cares, but he doesn’t want to make a bad impression on Professor Lehnsherr, especially not when the prof is one who actually does the final grades himself, instead of shunting all the work of to his TAs.

It doesn’t hurt to look good, is what Clint learned in the circus. And it’s a lesson he won’t ever forget.

While he’s waiting for the elevator, coffee in hand, he’s surprised when Natasha slips out of her room wearing sweats and a frumpy sweater. Her hair’s tied up in a ponytail, and she has a little gym bag with her. Her headphones are on, so Clint knows better than to talk to her; he learned early on that headphones were code for “don’t talk to me,” and it’s something he adheres to pretty closely. If someone wants to be left alone, he’ll leave them alone. He knows what it’s like to want people to stay away and leave him to his own thoughts.

He does his best not to look at her while they wait, because he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Does he look at her for acknowledgement? Maybe she’ll try to look at him, too? Or should he just not look at her? It’s the awkward waiting game, and Clint doesn’t know what to do. Luckily, the elevator beeps its arrival, and they step on. Clint presses the button for the first floor, and Natasha still doesn’t say anything.

They stand on the elevator in silence, and they get off on the same floor. Clint turns towards the doors, while Natasha turns the other way, down the hallway and out of sight.

* * *

He spends two hours in Professor Lehnsherr’s office, working out his thesis and outline for his paper. It’s long and tedious, but it’s still enjoyable. Clint enjoys learning, and he feels like history has so much to offer -- patterns, techniques, strategies, things to avoid -- there’s so much to learn from the past. And Professor Lehnsherr, despite being a huge douchebag, is really helpful. 

(Sam says he should consider majoring in history if he loves it so much, but it’s too static for Clint. He doesn’t want to sit in an office all day, pondering the past and what it means for the future. He loves it, but not as the determinant for his future. He wants to make a more concrete difference, just one step at a time, one person at a time.)

Office hours are never comfortable -- Clint never knows how to interact with his professors; casual? formal? -- but it gets a bit stranger when Professor Xavier wheels himself into the cramped space.

“Hello, Erik, good morning. And Clint, is it?”

Clint starts from where he’s sitting, hunched over his laptop. It’s weird to have a professor know him, much less a professor he’s only talked to maybe once (to clarify a question about evolution). And he’s never seen professors from different departments talk to each other, although to be fair, he rarely sees professors outside of lecture. Or office hours, he adds mentally.

Still, he should probably respond. “Morning, Professor Xavier.”

He tries to force a smile and then returns to his paper, doing his best to tune out the conversation between his professors, and trying to interrupt as little as possible. It’s hard, since he has to keep checking his thesis with Professor Lehnsherr, and it is decidedly uncomfortable. But to leave right after Professor X came in would probably make things even weirder, so he can’t do that.

Instead, he camps out for another thirty minutes, when he’s sure that his thesis is as good as it’s gonna get, before he books it. When he’s in the hallway, he can hear Professor Xavier say something that sounds like, “Alone at last,” but thinking about that is… sort of weird. He didn’t come to university to speculate on his professors’ love lives, and he’s going to stay that way.

When he gets back to his dorm, since he doesn’t have any classes until the afternoon (and he is definitely not going to camp out on campus for four hours, until his Dance History 10 lecture), he stops in the lobby to grab a soda from a vending machine. It’s ridiculously expensive (“Because you’ll buy it,” Bucky said to him a few days ago) and passes the glass door to the gym. Natasha’s inside, splayed out on the floor as she sits in the splits and leans forward so that her chin is touching the floor. Clint’s first thought is, it looks painful.

She’s ditched the frumpy sweater for a t-shirt, and she’s the only one in the room, which isn’t a surprising considering it’s only a little after 9AM and everyone is either in bed or in class. Or maybe at breakfast. College students have a strange affinity for working out at night, though, so there’s no one else in the gym with her.

She seems content, being alone. Clint can’t see her face or anything, but the way she moves makes it seem like she’s sort of comfortable. And he definitely feels like a creep now, kind of staring at her through a door, so he turns and leaves.

Of course, that’s when he notices Bucky, getting off the elevator. Who definitely sees him. Which makes him a loser as well as a creep.

 


	9. Chapter 9

HYDRA retaliates against Steve by trying to get him written up enough times, so that he’ll have meetings with the building’s administration council and eventually get kicked out of the dorms. Clint thinks they’re overreacting, considering that Steve’s original prank didn’t even do anything except inconvenience them a little.

That’s bigots for you, Clint figures. Some of them have taken to camping out in the lounge, which isn’t even their lounge, and making a ton of noise whenever Steve’s around, especially during quiet hours. If Steve was  _ smart _ , Bucky complains, he would stay in their room to study, or report them to Pepper, Sam, or another RA. Steve counters by saying that he can’t just let the bullies walk all over him, and reporting them won’t do anything. Bucky grins at him and makes exaggerated groaning noises.

Behind them, Tony mimes shoving their heads together. Clint tries not to laugh, but he knows that it’s what pretty much everyone is thinking. 

If they were a TV show, Darcy Lewis says when they’re all hanging out in her and Jane Foster’s room (minus Steve and Bucky, of course, who are fighting Occupy Avengers Lounge; Loki, whose highbrow tastes don’t allow for “cheesy, deus ex machina filled cliches;” and a few others, who are studying on a Friday night) for a Star Wars marathon.

The idea comes up when Natasha accidentally reveals that she’s never seen Star Wars, half-explaining that her guardians were very anti-capitalism, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, and didn’t allow for much exposure to liberal Western propaganda, which she embellishes with air quotes, even thought Russia was no longer a communist country.

It feels a bit… put on, like she’s acting the part of a role that makes everyone comfortable, or that everyone expects her to be like. But it’s not really Clint’s place to call her out, so he doesn’t.

No one else seems to notice, as they’ve all become wrapped up in an argument over the order in which to introduce Natasha to the movies. Tony demands that they watch the original trilogy only, on account of there being an “actual storyline instead of pointless man angst.” Darcy wants to watch the newer trilogy first, because it’s in chronological order. Rhodey gets into the argument, too, arguing that they should watch the movies in the order that they came out in so that they “don’t get distracted by how shitty 1970s CGI was.”

Pepper throws herself in with him, which sets Tony off. Bruce doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t seem comfortable either. The noise is growing, but luckily they’re enough away from the lounge, and Sam’s room, that they probably won’t get in trouble. Especially with Pepper being off-duty. 

Eventually, they settle down. It’s a weird sort of tense atmosphere, where everyone is upset over such a small problem, but things get better when Thor arrives, Loki decidedly not-in-tow still, bringing a few bags of popcorn with him. The food eases the tension, and everyone settles in on Darcy’s bed, to be swept away by the adventures of Luke Skywalker.

And they would have been, if there wasn’t a loud crashing noise. Not from the room, nothing’s broken, but from down the hall, with the open door making that sound strangely clear. 

Everyone sort of rushes over to the lounge. One of the tables has been overturned, and there’s a lot of people in there who weren’t there before -- Clint doesn’t really recognize any of them. Pepper identifies one of them as Fury’s boss, Alexander Pierce, though. It seems serious. He’s talking to Steve and Fury, his voice quiet and his lips moving too fast for Clint to even try to lip read (and thankfully Tony doesn’t ask him to, because it’s fucking exhausting). One of the tables has been knocked over, and there’s a whole lot of shouting and noises at once, so Clint can’t really hear what’s going on. He can see all the people, though, and read their faces.

None of them really look happy. Well, the HYDRA douches look pretty smug, but Steve and Fury seem pissed off. Pierce’s face looks pissed off, too, but Tony mentions (and Clint agrees) that there’s some element of smugness to him, although it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly makes him come of that way. He leaves after a few minutes, though, and the footsteps he takes reveals a lot about him, or at least Clint thinks so. 

(It’s a strange hobby, dissecting the ways that people walk, but they can tell you a lot about them. Pierce walks with a confidence, like nothing can stop him. He also has a bit of that douchebag dudebro swagger, even though he’s not a nineteen-year-old frat boy.)

Steve, for his part, looks uncharacteristically pissed off. In a decidedly un-Steve way, he storms out of the room.

Everyone watches him pass by. It’s hard to figure out what to say, especially when Bucky follows him out the room, and Fury glares the fuck out of them, like he’s daring them to talk, and then he leaves.

Fancy coat billowing behind him.

“Steve, what the fuck happened?” Tony is the first one to speak, an impulsive rush of words that annoys Steve instead of comforting him like Tony probably meant to do.

He is not good with words. He can be if he tries, but he so rarely applies himself to making sure that people understand him, and he’s so insured against offending people (when you have that much money, you can get away with a lot) that he doesn’t seem to realize it. 

Steve stiffens angrily when Tony claps him on the shoulder, and Tony just breezes by it.

“I was trying to do this myself, Tony. I don’t need your help. I’ve already talked to the administration and-”

“The administration? What, you mean Fury? His whole job is keeping us in line, so that they can make more money out of all the students. They’re not going to kick out HYDRA, or anyone else. They’re not here to make sure nothing happens, they’re just about damage control. You can’t trust them, or expect them to get anything done, not unless you want nothing to happen.”

“Who am I  _ supposed _ to trust, then? You? No,” Steve shakes his head. “You think you have this business empire, you have money, you think you can get so much done? Throw your money around and make things happen? Get your family to pull donations? That doesn’t work, Tony. You can’t fix things with just money.”

They’re standing close together now, head-to-head, toe-to-toe. Steve is almost half a head taller than Tony, but it isn’t… he’s not overpowering Tony, Clint thinks. It’s not a pissing contest to him. But the anger is almost radiating off of them in waves, and everyone around them just has the most concerned looks on their faces, Clint included.

The only person who doesn’t seem worried or angry is Loki. Fucking Loki. Actually, he seems to be relishing all the angry drama. Clint’s not sure who gets off on seeing their friends pissed off at each other (although to say “friends” is more than a bit of a stretch), but apparently Loki’s that kind of person. He’s sitting back with a satisfied smirk on his face as Steve and Tony continue to get in each other’s face and then start gesturing towards some of the others.

Clint backs away from the scene as everyone starts yelling at each other -- Tony and Steve at each other’s throats, Bruce looking both upset and uncomfortable with the angry people around him, Natasha looking tense and annoyed. There’s so much anger in the room, everyone is upset and it becomes too much.

Maybe it’s a coward’s way out, but he books it. Out of the lounge and down the end of the hallway, where the windows are wide open and he can get a spot of fresh air, maybe a clearer perspective. When he decided to go to college, Clint didn’t think that he’d wind up with this kind of problem.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr: This chapter is totally skippable, there is almost no plot.

“Oh, thank God you’re here” was the first thing Clint heard when he walked into his room after a long, long day of paper writing. He’d spent the last hour in Professor Lehnsherr’s office going over just his thesis statement, and suffice to say he felt pretty beat up. So to say he was confused with Coulson’s relief was a bit of an understatement.

“Hey, Phil, what’s going on?” Setting his backpack on his desk, Clint flopped onto his bed belly-first and dug his face into his pillow, unsure if he wanted to hear what was probably some more floor drama.

“Steve’s been asking everyone for help on how to get back at HYDRA, and I can’t think of anything. Please tell me you have some ideas?” Phil sat on his own bed and straightened his sleeves. “I really don’t want to disappoint him, y’know? And besides, HYDRA needs to be taken down.”

“Have they done something to you?” Clint asked. So far, Phil seemed pretty mild-mannered about, well, everything; not that he was emotionless or bland, but he seemed to keep his feelings close to his chest. This was probably one of the first times that Clint saw him so openly emotional.

Phil shrugged in response. 

“Not yet,” he said with a wry smile. “I kind of… fly under their radar.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” That was a vague message, if nothing else, but Clint’s not sure if Phil wants to be more direct. After all, Phil’s the kind of person who chooses his words before he says anything. If he’s being vague, there’s probably a reason.

“Nope.” There’s something in his voice that tells Clint not to push. Phil’s business is his business, after all, and Clint would like to continue the school year with at least one friendship intact. 

“Right. So, ideas to get back at HYDRA…” 

They spend the next 20 minutes or so trying to come up with good ideas that leave Sam, Pepper, and Nick Fury with some kind of plausible deniability. It doesn’t go well.

“Honestly,” Clint says, “The best way to fight them is straight up. Like, I don’t know, write an open letter in the school newspaper. Or get like, the news involved, y’know? If that makes sense. I’m a little brain dead right now, so.”

Before Phil can say anything, there’s a knock on the door. 

As Phil opens the door for Natasha and Maria (Clint stays belly-flopped on his bed), Clint cranes his neck to see a bunch of people behind them. He can vaguely make out a few people (Tony, Pepper, Bruce, is that Matt Murdock?), before he hears Sam’s voice, loud and clear.

“Hey, you guys up for some dinner?”

Phil turns his head to look at Clint, who’s rolled over and is in the process of getting out of bed. He takes that for an affirmative, telling Sam to wait for just a few minutes.

They head to dinner in a huge group. Clint was right, because Matt is a part, along with Foggy Nelson and Thor. They walk semi-silently down the hallway, past the lounge and into the elevator after a short wait (Tony jabs the elevator buttons furiously the whole time). 

The moment the doors closes, Tony pumps his fist in the air, yelling “Success!”

Everyone else rolls their eyes, but Clint is a little bit confused. He’s pretty sure they were trying to avoid Steve, but he’s not sure. He doesn’t say anything, though; it’s a little intimidating when everyone’s in on the joke and you’re not.

“What are we celebrating, exactly?”

Tony answers with a wide grin. “We were avoiding Steve-o. I know he’s on a mission to stop the bad guys and all, but he was getting too intense.”

There’s something else in his tone -- more than Steve just being “intense.” Tony doesn’t seem inclined to share, though, and Clint doesn’t feel close enough to him to ask. Instead, the elevator falls silent as they wait for it to descend to the first floor. 

With a little ping, the doors open -- Steve still out of sight -- and they make a break for it. They must look ridiculous, Clint thinks, as they all power walk to the dining hall.


End file.
